A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to accessories for use by players engaging in the sport of hockey. More particularly, the invention relates to a protector accessory which fits over the skate of a hockey player to minimize injuries to the foot and ankle of the player.
B. Description of Background Art
Ice hockey has long been a popular group sport for young people to participate in. It is also a very popular spectator sport in which fans can watch their favorite grade school, high school, college or professional hockey teams engage competing teams.
Probably one of the main reasons that people enjoy watching or playing hockey games is the speed at which play occurs. Players accelerate quickly on the ice, and skate between goals at opposite ends of an ice rink at speeds up to 15 miles per hour. A pair of goal nets is positioned at opposite long ends of the ice rink. Goal points are scored by launching a disk-shaped puck made of a very hard rubber into an opponent's net which is guarded by a goalie stationed at the net. The puck is launched by striking it with an L-shaped stick, to thus propel it along the ice or through the air into the goal net.
Originally, hockey sticks were made of a tough hard wood such as ash. Using traditional hard wood sticks, a puck could be accelerated to speeds of about 35 to 45 mph. Thus, it can be easily understood that a hard rubber puck, weighing about 8-10 ounces and traveling at 40 mph. can cause painful injuries if it impacts a player. Since a puck is launched from the surface of an ice rink, the puck generally travels along the surface of the ice or at relatively low elevations above the surface of the ice. Therefore, the most common impact areas of a player who inadvertently gets in the way of a speeding puck are the player's skates, feet and ankles.
Modernly, wooden hockey sticks have been replaced with sticks made of aluminum, fiberglass, or synthetic composite materials. The newer hockey sticks are more durable than the older wooden sticks, and have the advantage of enabling pucks to be launched at much higher speeds. Modern hockey sticks made of such materials are capable of accelerating pucks to speeds as great as twice that attainable with the older wooden sticks, e.g., 70 mph. as opposed to 35 mph. Since the kinetic energy of a moving object is proportional to the square of its velocity, pucks launched with the newer sticks can have kinetic energies of the order of four times that of pucks launched using a wooden hockey stick. Accordingly, the potential for receiving painful and potentially serious injuries from a flying puck in modern hockey games if quite substantial.
The potential for painful if not serious injuries to the feet and ankles exists for all hockey players, and particularly so if they are participants in games in which the newer aluminum or composite sticks are used. The problem of potential injuries exists for both professional hockey players, and members of amateur grade school, high school and college teams. Also, because of the increasing popularity of hockey, there are increasing numbers of amateur hockey players who are not necessarily affiliated with a school or college. Accordingly, there is an increasing need for providing some means of protecting the ankles and feet of hockey players from injuries caused by pucks flying at higher speeds.
One solution to the problem of protecting the ankles and feet of a hockey player from impact injuries caused by flying hockey pucks is to use the obvious expedient of positioning some sort of padding medium over likely and vulnerable impact regions of the feet and ankles. Thus, there have been proposed various sorts of cushioning or padding accessories which are incorporated into the instep and/or ankle side regions of hockey skates, or as parts of straps which may be attached over skates on a player's feet. However, such protective articles have not been widely adopted, for a number of reasons.
One problem with prior art protectors for hockey players' feet and ankles is that some such devices are custom made of expensive materials such as carbon fibers, and, at a cost of several hundred dollars per skate, effectively place such articles beyond the practical reach of most amateur players.
Simpler and cheaper feet protector devices for hockey players have been proposed which utilize an elastomeric insert, or a flowable gel to absorb impact energy of a flying puck. However, these devices have proved ineffective because they generally transmit the full impact shock of a flying puck to parts of the ankle or foot.
The limitations of prior art ankle and foot protectors for hockey players discussed above was a primary motivation for the present invention.